In Which We Discuss Nightmares in the Sky

Nightmares in the Sky is a collection of photographs of gargoyles by F.Stop Fitzgerald (sic) (not the photographs on this post - those are mine).  The only text in the volume is a long essay by Stephen King on the subject of gargoyles - "nightmares in the sky".  Stephen King talks about how he was astonished to learn that there were a number of gargoyles on buildings in New York City which he'd never noticed.  He didn't believe it until he went and looked for himself and found that there were dozens on streets where he would have sworn there wasn't one.

He also observed that gargoyles are always looking down.

I did go on a little hunt of my own, hoping to have a similar revelation.  I didn't find quite as many and most were on the buildings you'd expect - churchs.  The ones on the costa coffee surprised me.

It's actually quite a fun hobby, looking for gargoyles and I intend to continue with it.

Stephen King also mentions a horror movie which scared Joe Hill as a child.  He let him watch it again with the idea that another viewing would show the strings and Joe Hill wouldn't build it up in his mind.  It worked.  A sweet story.  In 1988, when this book was released and I was born, Joe Hill was sixteen.  Owen King was eleven, and their elder sister, Naomi, was eighteen.  Stephen King himself was the same age as my grandmother - thirty-nine, going on forty.  Naomi King is actually the same age as my mother.

During this entire period, since the death of his mother in 1979, Stephen King was depressed, suicidal, and drunk.  It was in when Owen King was ten, in 1987, that Tabitha King threatened to leave him and he began to sober up.  According to another article I've read, Stephen King's depression was made worse by the savaging the critics gave Tommyknockers, which was the catalyst for Stephen King finally cutting back.  One of the stories I've heard most often about this period was that Stephen King cannot recall writing Cujo (1981) at all.

It's interesting that Stephen King has such a healthy relationship with his family when his issues with addiction and depression would have covered such a large part of their childhoods.  As far as I know he was never abusive towards his family, which is the trait that typically marks the child of an alcoholic, so I guess it's that that made the difference.  In the article I've linked to it's claimed that Stephen King believed whatever he wrote about wouldn't happen - hence The Shining.  I suppose that also explains Pet Semetary.

I've just started reading The Dark Half again, which I've read before.  It's one that I find quite interesting because the main character is a chimera; he contains cells and DNA from his dead twin.

It's theorized that as many as one in ten pregnancies begin as twins, with the weaker one being absorbed.  Sometimes their cells stick around, like in the case of Lydia Fairchild who gave birth to her dead sister's children. 

That's one of the things that makes me want to study genetics.  How often does it happen?  Why?  There are lots of creatures that are able to absorb foetuses when a pregnancy would not be welcome, such as rabbits, and having the little bit of competition amongst two embryos might give us a better chance of stronger descendants, so that might be a good theory to start from.  There are also strains of yeast which make use of chimerism as an alternative to mutation - so maybe humans get a similar benefit?

I'll write more about that one after this read through.  I'm excited to get on with the Dark Tower series after the second one finally hooked me.  After The Dark Half I'll need to reread Four After Midnight and then I can finally read The Dark Tower III: The Wasteland.

After that, there's a string of seven books I've read before.  Although I'd read maybe one third to one half of Stephen King's bibliography before starting this project that's the longest string.  I wonder why those appealed to me?  It wasn't intentional.  Looking over the list of the seven it looks like three of them are about women, which might be the linking factor.

In Which We Discuss Night Shift and the Stand

Appparently, I never wrote a post about Night Shift.  I'm sure I read it, and checking GoodReads confirms that.  I read it in August of last year.  So, my apologies for never posting.

Edit: Oh hey, I did post, I just didn't finish all the tags.  It's here.

Night Shift is a collection of short stories, some written by King in high school or college.  The collection itself was first published in 1978.  Stephen and Tabitha King had three children by now, Naomi, Joe and Owen.  The two boys grew up to be writers as I mentioned here.

Night Shift is a collection of twenty stories, including two related to 'salem's Lot, Jerusalem's Lot and Graveyard Shift. One that stands out to me is Quitters, Inc, which illustrates a rather extreme anti-smoking viewpoint.

I do like Stephen King's short stories.  This isn't one of my favourite collections, but it's worth a read, as they all are.

At the moment, I'm reading The Stand.  I'm 520 pages through, and that's not even halfway.

The Stand was originally published in 1978.  At the time, about 300 pages were cut.  Later, in 1990, it was republished with those cut sections put back in, and the setting updated to 1990.  This lead to quite a few anachronisms; the one that's stood out to me so far is mention of what I think is a record player.  I was born in 1988, but they did have CDs by then, didn't they?

I actually quite like the stand, more than I did The Shining, and a lot more than I did 'salem's Lot.  It feels like the right length for the story.  There are quite a few books of Stephen King's that feel too long - Christine, for one, and 'salem's Lot - but this isn't one of them, despite being one of the longest single books I've ever read.  The story jumps between quite a few characters, not all of whom connect, and it's sometimes difficult to remember who's who right away.  I think the length works because they're all interesting.

At this point, there are a few references to King's other novels.  There's a government agency which also appears in Firestarter, and Randell Flagg who shows up again in The Dark Tower series amongst others.  More when I've read a bit further through.

In Which We Discuss The Shining and Rage

It took me quite a long time to finish The Shining. According to Goodreads, I started it on the 4th and finished it on the 28th. That's unusual for me, and not just compared to Rage, which I started on the 30th and finished earlier today, the 31st.

The Shining was Stephen King's third published novel, following Carrie and 'salem's Lot.  Rage was his fourth, though he actually started playing with the idea while still in high school.  In contrast, he began Carrie after college (uni).

I've never even seen the movie of The Shining - which, apparently, is not a very faithful adaptation anyway - so I came to it completely fresh.  I don't know why I found it so hard to get through.  It's not like I abandoned it and then came back and read it in chunks; I just read a chapter or two a night every other day.  That's very unusual for me.  During that same time period I read quite a few other books, but if I'd left one this long without finishing, I normally would have just given up.

Rage, on the other hand, I'd read before.  As I said, it was started when Stephen King was in high school, and published in 1977, three years after Carrie and the same year as The Shining.  It was published under the name Richard Bachman, and my edition of The Bachman Books has an essay on "Why I was Bachman".  Essentially, it has to do with wondering if his success was pure luck or talent, and with wanting to publish more than his publishers deemed necessary.  In the essay, Stephen King describes how The Beatles dreamt of just going for an anonymous tour as Randy and the Rockets.

"They would wear hokey capes and masks a la Count Five, he said, so no one would recognise them, and they would just have a rave-up, like in the old days.

When the interviewer suggested they would be recognised by their voices, Paul seemed at first startled...and then a bit appalled."

Later in the essay, King points out that the Beatles would have been recognised before they even opened their mouths, by George's guitar licks.  Since day one, he's been getting letters asking if he was Richard Bachman.

Since Bachman died of cancer-of-the-pseudonym in 1985, three years before I was born, I have never not known that Bachman and King were the same person.  So I can't comment on whether I would have guessed or not.

The next book on the list is Night Shift, a collection of short stories King published in a variety of magazines - including playboy - throughout the previous years. 

Some edits, while I remember;

King's goal, with The Shining was to write more than simple horror.  To have a character driven by inner demons as well as outer ones.  The film is a very unfaithful adaptation, but this does come across in the book.

Rage was withdrawn from publication following several real school shootings which made King uncomfortable with continuing to publish.  I have it in an old edition of The Bachman Books, and it seems like it's also available in the Kindle edition of that book.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read Last Week III

I'm actually starting this post a few days early, since I won't have time on Monday - I'll be completing my first day in my new job!

This week has dragged.  It was one thing when unemployment was a long term thing, that stretched on.  I could come up with routines, experiment with recipes within my meagre budget, and generally just get on with living.  Now though, I'm not living, I'm waiting.  For my real life to begin.  So I'll read a book or maybe two or three...

Neverwhere - This has been in my unread pile for a while.  I like most of Neil Gaiman's stuff, though recently, I've found it hard to forget his association with and support of Amanda Palmer, considering the Evelyn and Evelyn trainwreck (post here about why it was so terrible).  Anyway, that's probably why it took me so long to get to Neverwhere.

I liked Neverwhere.  I read it over two days, and it was interesting and absorbing, and so on.  I don't know why though, I just can't get excited about it.  The plot is what you might imagine you'd get if someone with an interest in fantasy started having fever dreams beneath a map of London tube stations.  I gave it 4/5 stars, but I'm thinking of revising it to 3.

I seem to be the last amongst my group of friends to have read it.  When I checked goodreads, they'd all left their stars already.

The Perfect Murder - I actually read this last week, or maybe the week before, but completely forgot to mark it as finished.  It's a collection of short stories, like The Perfect Escape, which I read two weeks ago.  Essentially, you get a bunch of short stories and a sample chapter of a novel by the same author to go with each one.  They were pretty good, especially since the Kindle edition was free.  I gave it 3/5.

We Use Coupons, You Should Too - this is yet another book aimed at an American market.  I read it because I'm frugal and because I have an odd habit of reading non-fiction books that do not in any way apply to me.  For instance, I'm currently reading Babynomics, a finance book written for expectant parents.  When I was about thirteen or so, I read The Selfish Pig's Guide to Caring, which is even more irrelevant to me, since I have no intention of ever becoming a carer.  It was very well written though.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading this.  It's a very thorough guide, and even though much of it doesn't apply to me, I  still found it interesting.  And now I'm tempted to go look up couponing (vouchering?) in the UK.

...okay, it's now Monday, and I did google it, and it's not really possible.  I gave it 3/5 stars anyway.

I picked up Nikki Grahame's Fragile in another Kind of Book sale, if I recall correctly.  I'm working on a longer post about it, so I won't say too much here.  I gave it 4/5 stars.

Finally, The Shining.  Another one that I want to discuss in another post.  For some reason, it took me ages to read it; a good fortnight or so.  Unusual for me, especially since I didn't hate it.  3/5.